A bookmarklet for looking up species in the Encyclopaedia of Life

We like the Encyclopaedia of Life here at AoBBlog. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a site where you can search for a species name and the site will find a page (or pages) about the species – often with an image and some information about it.

We like it so much we’ve make a bookmarklet to speed up searching it. This bookmarklet is a button that allows you to highlight text in a webpage and then just click on to search EOL, instead of opening up a new tab and typing or copy ‘n’ pasting the text in before clicking search.

To add it to your own browser you’ll need to be able to edit bookmarks.

• First highlight the code below and copy it.

javascript:(function eollink(){var eol = window.getSelection();if (eol != null){var newhref = 'http://eol.org/search?utf8=✓&q=' + eol + '&type%5B%5D=taxon_concept&commit=Filter';window.open (newhref);}})();

• Next, drag the URL of this page to your bookmarks bar. Now right-click on it to edit.
• Where the field is name delete the contents and replace it with EOL. This is so you know which button does the job on your toolbar.
• Now go to the URL or Location field. This will have the address of this page in it. Delete it and paste (cmd+V on a Mac, ctrl+V on Windows or a Chromebook) the code into the URL field.
• Save your changes.

Now when you see something like Quercus alba in a webpage without a link, you can just drag your cursor over the text to highlight it and then click on EOL on your toolbar. This should open a new tab or window with your EOL search results in it.

This bookmarklet will work as long as EOL don’t change how their search system works.